Many names have been discussed as replacements for Zinedine Zidane at Real Madrid, but making an appointment will not be easy because the situation is so complicated in terms of finance, the futures of Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar, and the demands of club president Florentino Perez.

Firstly I must say I was not surprised to see Zidane go, knowing him as I do. He was close to leaving at the start of the year because of poor results and criticism from all over Spain. But he stayed on to see how Real Madrid would do in the Champions League and of course he won it for the third season running, making him one of the most successful managers in history.

Yet he has never seen coaching as a vocation, and only went into it at Real Madrid to help his children, who have now come through the youth system at the club.

He was meant to be a temporary measure as manager when Rafael Benitez was sacked in 2016, but he won the Champions League that season so Perez could not sack him. And so it carried on, and although he kept winning the Champions League, he had problems with Perez and the disagreements intensified recently, mostly over the president’s proposal to sign Neymar, which is what has upset Cristiano Ronaldo so much. The club has no general manager so it is the president who dictates transfer policy and negotiates contracts, and any coach has to work within this structure.

Who would want the Real Madrid job?

On the one hand, it is a fantastic job, one that any coach would want. On the other hand, there are huge expectations from the fans and the president, and only one coach in the past 44 years has lasted over three years – most survive less than one or two seasons. So that might make it difficult to tempt ambitious coaches like Mauricio Pochettino or Jurgen Klopp, who appear happy at their clubs. It would cost around €50m to buy out Pochettino from his contract at Tottenham, and I don’t think the club would pay that much. The only time they have paid for a coach’s contract was with Jose Mourinho, and that was €15m. Tottenham may need the money for their new stadium, but Real Madrid know that Daniel Levy is very difficult to deal with.

Finance is a big issue at the club. They could not go ahead with stadium redevelopment this year because no one would fund it, and the proposed deal for Neymar is extraordinary. I understand they are prepared to pay a transfer fee of €300m to Paris St-Germain and wages of €50m per year after tax. I understand it was close to agreement earlier in the year but the player has gone cool on the idea. Either way, it has upset Ronaldo because Neymar would earn so much more than him and be the centre of attention. So Cristiano feels mistreated and his future is uncertain, as is Gareth Bale’s and Karim Benzema’s. There are other players who are getting older, too. Luka Modric will be 33 in September, for example, so there is a lot of change in the air.

Guti (centre) is head coach of Real Madrid’s youth team (Getty Images)

Guti has been mentioned as a possibility, having followed Zidane into the team and then as a youth coach, but would they risk appointing another inexperienced man? At the other end of the scale, Arsene Wenger has done it all and Perez has admired him for years, offering him the job at different times. He was always under contract to Arsenal then, but is free now, so he is a possibility. But would he be prepared to work under Perez? This would be a problem in trying to get Antonio Conte, who has shown in his fall-out with Roman Abramovich at Chelsea that he is not easily manipulated.

Would former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger fancy one last hurrah in Madrid? (Getty Images)

Maybe Massimiliano Allegri from Juventus might fit the bill. So would Joachim Low, but he has just signed a new contract with Germany.

Whoever takes over has to be prepared to work with Perez and understand they are expected to bring instant success. Winning La Liga is important to Real Madrid. They started badly last time because Ronaldo was banned for the first four games of the season, and then it took him some time to recover his form. There were injuries for the full-backs too, and they had too much to do in order to catch up with Barcelona. So although winning the Champions League is fantastic, they have to try to overtake Barcelona in the league.

The Neymar conundrum

This is why Perez wants to bring in Neymar, as well as a huge commercial imperative to sign the Brazilian. But finances are difficult, particularly the all-important wages-to-revenue ratio. It is considered healthy to have a ratio of about 50 per cent, which most of the leading clubs do. When I was president from 2006 to2009, we reduced the ratio to 47/48 per cent, down from an unsustainable 90 per cent in 2000, when all the Galacticos were being signed.

But it is now back up to around 68/69 per cent, and if Neymar is signed it will go even higher. That is a dangerous level to be operating at, even for the richest club in the world.

Whoever comes in, I believe an appointment will be made in the next week, certainly before the World Cup starts. I am sure Perez has been in touch with his targets already and will act quickly.

But whether the new man can follow Zidane’s example and win the Champions League first time is another thing – it sounds impossible to win four in a row, but then it seemed unlikely to win three in succession – and we did that.

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